Urs Fischer
Untitled, 2014
Central to Urs Fischer’s omnivorous approach to art-making is the idea of transformation. The two sculptures shown here (both Untitled, 2014) began life as part of a massive installation of clay works created by the 1,500 individuals invited to participate in the production of Fischer's recent show at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. Re-cast in bronze, sculptures created in large part by the public, take their place next to public sculpture. Characteristically, meanings, genres and contexts are set in collision.
Urs Fischer and various artists, YES, 2011–
Unfired clay sculptures modeled on-site by multiple authors
Dimensions variable
© Urs Fischer. Courtesy of the artists.
Swiss artist Urs Fischer talks to curator Neville Wakefield about art and identity
Neville Wakefield: Let’s start with tattoos and the writing of identity on the body. Did you get tattoos before you made any art?
Urs Fischer: No. I mean, when do you start making art? To children art is natural. It’s only later that art becomes unnatural or is seen as a strange thing you do. Everybody, as a kid, is an artist.
NW: And then we lose it.
UF: You lose it or you exchange it for other ways of playing or interacting. But it is natural. What it is I don’t know, and how it ties in with identity I couldn’t tell you. From my point of view there’s something claustrophobic about artists’ oeuvres.
NW: Is that about becoming too much of a virtuoso? You get too good at what you do and you don’t know how to do anything else.
UF: You program your mind to this sort of thing. There are certain forms of feedback people receive that make them think they’re on the right path. It’s inevitable that you become what you become. What I always try to do is run away, because it freaks me out.
NW: Is that fear of classification, or of being defined?
UF: I think it’s that you don’t want to be this guy. Maybe you want to be that guy, but you want to be that guy for a week. And then you would like to explore other things. The strange thing is there is something appealing about “that guy” to some people. For instance, with Duchamp, who cares about the works, at this point? It’s just the reproductions and the fantasy of “that guy”. He worked really hard all his life to keep that fantasy alive.
Download PDF of full interview below...
Born in 1973, Urs Fischer began his career in Switzerland where he studied photography at the Schule fur Gestaltung, Zurich. He moved to Amsterdam in 1993 and had his first solo show at a gallery in Zurich, in 1996. Fischers subversive approach to art is often considered to be influenced by anti-art movements like Neo-Dada, Lost Art or the Situationist International. Since Fischer began showing his work, in the mid-nineteen-nineties, in Europe, he has produced an enormous number of objects, drawings, collages, and room-size installations.